5SM Referendum, Corrao “The decision was taken in Rome, MEPs were not consulted”

They’ve got their own ideas, and you can easily get them talking face to face. Still, they were not even asked about their opinion on the collocation of the 5 Stars Movement into the European Parliament. The decision about the organisation of this kind of referendum “was taken in Rome; since the beginning, Beppe and Casaleggio were the ones with the power to decide, and it was like that even this time,” shrugged the head of the 5SM delegation, Ignazio Corrao. “We weren’t consulted,” he admitted, “we held a meeting yesterday but this issue was not mentioned.”

After a first phase, in which the ‘five-stars’ declined any comment, and just disappointment and bewilderment filtered for the surprise appeared earlier in the morning on Grillo’s blog, Corrao said he’s “relaxed” and that “he agrees” with the choice. It’s all Greens’ fault, he wanted to underline: “They had a sly behaviour,” he attacked, “They cannot say ‘vote for me then we’ll talk’. This would have meant they would have held the whip hand.” Then “their ‘playing’ led us here,” added the head of the delegation, saying that in the end it’s not a tragedy at all: “We do not have any reference group at European level,” he explained, “then it would have been a compromise in any case,” both with a coalition with Farage or with the Greens, still “we would have been less free with the Greens.”

Less convincing, according to Corrao, the option of a collaboration with conservatives: “Sincerely, I cannot see anything we share with them,” he admitted. While, if the winning option would be a confluence in the NI group, “we will respect it,” he assured, but “we will start the negotiations the day after this, to find our collocation.”

It is now time to ‘the web’ to talk – still, before voting, 5SM supporters are expressing their dissatisfaction and disappointment for the exclusion of the Greens: “It is normal for ‘the web’ to overreact,” commented Corrao, saying it is all fault of the “enormous pressure of the media” which has “turned Farage into bogeyman of the media, while before no one was talking about him.” That is to say, even though ‘the web’ is rebelling, there’s no intention of invalidating or re-forming the referendum, widening the range of choices. “It does not make any sense, it’s not possible to go on saying the Greens are nice and good and Farage is ugly and bad. Let’s be quite, let’s have a moment of rationality,” asked Corrao.